Tony Perkins, president of the anti-gay hate group Family Research Council, said Friday that the Boy Scouts’ anti-gay policy is “morally straight.”
In an interview with CNN, Perkins said the FRC’s decision to boycott United Parcel Shipping (UPS) was based on UPS placing a “greater priority on the political agenda of LGBT activists than the protection of Scouts.”
Last week, the FRC announced it was dropping UPS as its “official shipper” after the charity arm of UPS announced in November that it would “cease all future funding to the Boy Scouts until gay Scouts and leaders are welcome within the organization.”
While it remains unclear how many packages the FRC actually ships on a daily basis, Perkins described the boycott as a “moral” issue.
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“Well, the Boy Scouts for over 100 years, as part of their moral code, has challenged boys to be straight and to be upstanding citizens,” Perkins said. “That’s their code, morally straight, that they not engage in sexual behavior, that they keep themselves morally conditioned and mentally sharp, and that’s been their code.”
“As for their longstanding policy on homosexuality, the Boy Scouts are doing what every parent would want them to: putting children’s safety first,” said Perkins.
Perkins said UPS “isn’t interested in true diversity but in strong-arming anyone who disagrees with their extreme agenda,” and that the Boy Scouts’ “only crime is instilling character into millions of American boys.”
UPS is not the only corporation that has pulled its sponsorship from the Boy Scouts in recent months.
Iowa-based activist Zach Wahls has led several successful internet petition campaigns to enlist other Fortune 500 companies in pulling their charitable funding of the BSA based on the group’s anti-gay polices.
In September, the Boy Scouts’ biggest donor, Intel, ended its support, citing the BSA’s anit-gay policy. Most recently, the Merck Company Foundation, the private charitable foundation of the pharmaceutical giant, also discontinued its Boy Scouts sponsorship.
The FRC has been designated as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
